First Congress required itself to pass a budget in order to get paid. Now two Democrats want lawmakers’ checks withheld if they don’t raise the debt ceiling.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) are pitching a bill that would place lawmakers’ paychecks in an escrow account if the federal government began to miss its obligations because of congressional failure to raise the debt ceiling. Lawmakers would get their pay once the debt ceiling was raised or when the session ended.

“We are not a nation of deadbeats and delinquents, we pay our bills or we suffer dire consequences. If we in the Congress don’t do our job we shouldn’t get paid,” McDermott said. “Put it in an escrow and lets see how long they wait until their wife calls them.”

The legislation is modeled by an approach adopted in January that would have cut into lawmakers’ $174,000 annual salary if the two chambers didn’t pass a budget resolution. After that bill passed, the Senate passed a budget for the first time in four years.

Boxer said she had no qualms about the increasing frequency with which lawmakers are attempting to tie lawmaker pay to legislative action.

“Our goal is to not necessarily pass our bill. Our goal is to pass a debt ceiling,” Boxer said.

For now, the bill is a messaging document more than anything. Senate Democratic leadership hasn’t yet discussed the proposal and Boxer hasn’t formally pitched it to them. The Treasury Department is expected in the fall to exhaust emergency measures that have delayed raising the debt ceiling for several months.

The House has passed a bill that would prioritize debt payments with an eye to protecting the United State’s credit rating which was slashed by Standard & Poor’s below AAA in 2011 days ahead of a debt ceiling deadline. On Tuesday, S&P upgraded the U.S. credit outlook to “stable” but the rating remained at AA+.